A woman has vented online after revealing what happened when she confronted a mother about her “misbehaved” child.
The passenger explained she was heading to Los Angeles from Dallas for a job when things took an unexpected turn.
“I was sitting next to this mum in her late 20s with a child who looked to be about three to four years old,” she began the Reddit post.
“We sat in an aisle seat while the mum sat at the window seat, her child in the middle and I was sitting on the edge.”
The woman said about 20 minutes into the flight, the young boy started standing up on the seat and “stomping while mildly screaming”.
“All this while the mums nose was in her phone the whole time,” the frustrated passenger continued.
“I tried to make eye contact with her as a way to inform her that her child is not behaving.”
However, according to the woman, the mum “refused” to look up from her phone.
“I thought maybe after like 10 mins the child would get tired and sit, low and behold, the child didn’t.”
The woman said she then decided to confront the mum but things didn’t go the way she had hoped.
“I tapped the mum on her shoulder and told her that she should watch her child and tell him to sit down. She gave me a dirty look and told me to mind my own business.”
The woman asked reddit users if she was in the wrong, with her post bombarded with responses.
“I would have asked the kid to stop screaming, if mum didn’t like it then I would have said something to her about having to do it since she hadn’t,” one person wrote.
“But I’m guessing she was so checked out she wouldn’t care she only cared someone was telling her what to do.”
Another said: “I have ZERO sympathy for parents who don’t parent, then act offended when people don’t want to listen to their screaming kid.”
Meanwhile, a third person said that they feel for parents who try to calm down their child, but have ”no time for someone playing on the phone rather than TRY to calm a kid down”.
Others, including parents, wondered why the mother hadn’t brought any entertainment for the child.
“I have two kids that I’ve had to travel with, but I always brought entertainment for them and tried my best to prevent them from disturbing others,” the mum wrote.
“Thankfully they are teenagers now. Travelling with little kids kinda sucks.”
Another Reddit user said they would pay more to go on a long haul flight without kids on it. “I live in Australia so flights to America/Europe are 24 hours and I hope I never end up in a situation like this,” they wrote.
Meanwhile, one man found the funny side of a screaming baby on his 29-hour flight, filming his reaction which has since gone viral.
Henry Beasley, a musician from New Zealand, gave a quick documentation of the very loud flight on TikTok.
His eyes could be seen twitching as the baby’s screams continued to reach new heights.
“A nice long one here,” he wrote about a particularly prolonged scream. “Kettle’s boiled,” he joked.
Henry’s clip has been viewed 14.5 million times since sharing it in October last year.
In 2019, Japan Airlines introduced a booking system which show where babies are seated on flights.
It’s called a “baby map,” which show travellers who book through the airline website seats that have been claimed by passengers between the ages up to two years.
The seats will have a child icon displayed.
“For flights departing April 11, 2023 or earlier, child icons are not displayed in the following situations: Seats booked as part of a tour or using award tickets and seats selected through means other than the JAL website,” Japan Airlines website states.
“Child icons may not be displayed correctly if there is a change in aircraft,” it also says.
A Twitter user thanked the airline for the baby map in a post from 2019.
“Thank you, @JAL_Official_jp for warnings me about where babies plan to scream and yell during a 13-hour trip. This really ought to be mandatory across the board,” he wrote. “Since this blew up quite a bit: 1/ Adults can be just as bad as babies. 2/ Empathy is important and every situation is different. 3/ Where babies sit can be one of many indicators that help travellers plan flights,” he added.